


Blood and Bourbon

by Withstarryeyes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Blood, Fainting, Hurt Tony, Injury, Love Story, M/M, Mugging, Stab Wound, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-08-14 08:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8005159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Withstarryeyes/pseuds/Withstarryeyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s blood. Tony doesn’t even know where it’s coming from. Maybe it’s the head wound or maybe it’s the slash in his side from a knife that got too close. Maybe it’s the leftover adrenaline pumping out of his system so quickly in iron.</p><p>He’s injured, badly. He can feel in it the rough drags of breath he manages to get out of the thick muggy air in this back alley. He can barely feel the stinging of the knife wound, the bourbon earlier washing away the pain like evidence on a corpse in a river.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There’s blood. Tony doesn’t even know where it’s coming from. Maybe it’s the head wound or maybe it’s the slash in his side from a knife that got too close. Maybe it’s the leftover adrenaline pumping out of his system so quickly in iron. 

He’s injured, badly. He can feel in it the rough drags of breath he manages to get out of the thick muggy air in this back alley. He can barely feel the stinging of the knife wound, the bourbon earlier washing away the pain like evidence on a corpse in a river. 

He leans heavily on the sweat stained brick wall of the pub, it smells like vomit and alcohol and death. He shouldn’t have come out here. He knows that. He lives in New York city for god’s sake but he just needed to make a phone call. 

His brain needs some time to catch up, his thoughts sluggishly tick past him as he tries to remember where his phone is. He needs to call someone, someone with blonde hair and blue eyes that will cluck his tongue at how stupid Tony is but won’t give him shit about it. About the alcohol on his breath and the slippery blood that’s collecting in his shoes as it drips down his leg. It’s in his eyes too and he smears it across his cheek as he tries to grasp how deep the wound is. He’s woozy but he doesn’t know if it’s the bourbon or the blood loss. Probably both. 

His ringtone blasts out in the silent alley and Tony spins on his heel to look for telltale blue light of his touch screen when the world tilts to the side. He puts his hands on the dumpster and takes a few nauseous breaths before gritting his teeth and trying again. Slower this time, with tiny steps and a lot more winces, Tony manages to get his hands around the tiny casing of his phone. The screen is getting covered in blood but Tony swipes to answer the call, ignoring the sticky way the phone lands on his face and ear. 

“Hello?” He winces at the coarseness of his voice and the slight panting. He still can’t breathe all that well and he coughs, bright blood droplets landing on his pressed white t-shirt and the dirty black bricks of the alleyway. 

“Tony? Where are you? You were supposed to call an hour ago,” The voice on the other line is concerned and Tony can’t remember who it was. He’s too distracted at watching his shirt bloom with his blood, like a field of daisies popping up in the springtime. He thinks he makes a whimper or maybe a gurgle, his throat feels too wet, because the voice is swearing and he can hear keys being jingled. “Tony where are you?” It asks and Tony closes his eyes to remember. 

“Bar, maybe the Cheshire Cat, or some other disney bullshit like that. I’m in the alley, it smells back here.” He coughs again, the blood coats his tongue and drips out onto the bottom of his chin. He wipes it off and keeps babbling about the name of the pub he can’t remember. The other voice doesn’t sound any less worried as they promise to find him and click off. 

He’s tired. His eyes are half-lidded and his vision is all wonky. Like someone gave him a black eye. That’s not entirely impossible considering the fight he just had. He glances around the alley to find a place to lie down but there is nothing there but dumpsters and discarded beer bottles. He decides the ground will have to do and his legs fold underneath him quicker than he can think to sit down. Coughing again, blood splatters the ground around him, sprinkling his suit pants and staining his suede shoes. He thinks this isn’t right, that he should be doing something, fighting to stay awake. But sleep is trying to hard to pull him under and he just closes his eyes, falling victim to the shock and awe of this night. Even as the blonde haired blue eyed man he’d tried to call earlier rounds the corner with a flashlight. 

 

“Tony?” He calls, rounding the light around the corner. He doesn’t know what it catches first, the blood soaked shirt Tony is in or the blood around his mouth. His chest is barely moving and Steve sprints across the bricks, fumbling with his phone to call an ambulance. 

“Jesus, Tony. Tony?” He puts a hand on the shoulder of his friend and watches as his head rolls limply to land on his shoulder. His chest freezes as the phone line connects. 

“911, what’s your emergency?” 

Too damn much....


	2. Chapter 2

Steve’s hands are shaking as they take out his swiss army knife and a lighter. The orange flame casts a window of light over Tony’s face and Steve gasps at the paleness in Tony’s cheeks. There’s no pigment in them and sweat beads on his forehead. He looks like melting wax. Steve closes his eyes and listens to the thick wheezing emitted from his friend’s chest, he knows the wetness is caused by blood. The same blood that is staining the ground underneath him, leaking like sand in a child’s hands. He doesn’t have much medical training-- with the army expecting him to be more of a mascot than a soldier-- but he knows enough to recognize a tension pneumothorax. Blood building up behind the chest wall and straining the heart. Figures that when Tony fell apart he’d fall apart internally and externally, leaving blood stains in his path like the last lingering legacy of the Stark family tree. 

Pressing his pulse point, Tony’s heartbeat sluggishly bumps against his finger. Steve curses, the words coming out in hatred and fear and hopelessness. Tony doesn’t have much time. Man survives a fucking missile but can’t get through a knife fight. Steve pulls out a pen from his pocket, fumbles around Tony’s coat until he finds the last dredges of bourbon left in his silver flask. Steve makes a chest tube out of air and palms the part of Tony’s chest with the incision in it, finding the two ribs he needs to slip the make-shift chest tube into. Steve holds his breath and plunges the ink canister of the pen into Tony’s chest, waiting for a deep intake of breath to know that he’d done the right thing. 

Steve didn’t know silence could be so daunting until he was waiting for life to bloom in his ears in the soft huffs of a breath taken unobstructed. The moment is so pure and his adrenaline is so high that when Steve hears the little bit of air push past Tony’s lips he fist pumps the air. He knows Tony isn’t out of the woods yet, far from it considering the tsunami of blood that is pooling at their feet, but Steve knows he can make it until the ambulance gets there. He knows he gave Tony a fighting chance. He knows he won’t lose another friend in the absence of control and preparation.

Steve clears his throat as if to push down his emotions. It doesn’t work, he pretends it does and stares up at the sky, his hand laid gently upon Tony’s chest,  feeling the breaths bobbing his hand up and down.  The ambulance comes eventually, they always do, and Steve is still counting the motions of Tony’s chest. They load in him an ambulance and congratulate Steve. What for he’s not quite sure, they still have his half-dead friend and they’re still trying to save him. 

The ambulance pulls away and Steve watches as the little light fades from the alley. He curls in on himself then, letting the tears come. He’s scared and worried and his heart is racing way too quickly for his liking. The tears sting his eyes as he sobs, big motions of rocking in on himself, silent cries with tears streaming down his face. He can feel the swelling of his skin as the tears rake down his cheeks, the slope of his nose, and his cupid’s bow. 

He thinks for a moment of how stupid he was--is. How all he had to do was tell Tony about his feelings and he wouldn’t be having this moment of crisis. Because, really, what would Steve do if Tony died?

“Get it together Steve,” Chastising himself, Steve hauls himself off the ground, fumbling around for the flashlight long forgotten in the haze of emergency. The light filters out pink and Steve turns it over, a fingerprint of blood lies dead center of the flashlight's tip. Steve’s chest hitches again and he has to blow out a few breaths before retrieving his keys and walking to his car. 

The bright lights of brooklyn bar signs seem too cheery to Steve. They’re flashing false promises of good nights in sickenly sweet bubblegum pink and tangy pineapple yellow. It feels like someone started playing  _ Celebrate Good Times _ at a funeral. Steve unlocks his car and flinches at the sound of his alarm turning off. It’s stark against the hollow silence that echoes in his ears. He fiddles with the radio in his car, finding a handful of beatles songs being softly sung through the screen of his car stereo and pulls out onto the highway. 

He needs to fill the rest of the team in on Tony’s condition and find out what really happened in that alleyway but for now Steve lets the little ache in his chest swell with the crooning of Paul McCartney in his tiny car. All in good time… all in good time. 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The hospital is worse than the downtown area. Pastel colors scream in Steve’s mind as he counts the tiles on the linoleum floor. Someone is sobbing a few chairs away, a panicked medical intern is cursing at a chart, Steve’s phone blares the same melodic ringtone for the fifth time since he got here. His mind is blank, his hands are numb, he’s crying and barely breathing and he feels like every molecule in the universe is touching him because he’s too claustrophobic and too much is happening. 

There’s blood soaking every article of clothing on him and Steve thinks numbly that he should wash it off but a little voice in the back of his mind tells him not to. That it needs to be there to remind him of tonight. As if he could forget the sound of Tony’s blood filled lungs of his drunkenly slurred speech and the pitter patter of blood dripping out of his wound and onto the brick alleyway. Like he could just forget watching his crush bleed out in front of him.

Black heels, red hair, the cavalry is here and Steve doesn’t look up at his friends. He’s afraid that the look on their faces will turn him to stone like the gaze of Medusa.

* * *

 

His world seems all wrong, like someone slapped a filter on it. It’s hazy, barely inked out, like the sketch of a blueprint. 

He blinks and it’s Christmas. The tree is set up. He can feel the soft fabric of his favorite cotton train pajamas. 

“Tony,” His mother calls and Tony can smell christmas cookies baking. He splits a smile, bounding into the kitchen to find milk on the table. He sits down, pulling at the plate before his mom even puts it down. 

The chocolate is sweet on his tongue and he hums as the cookie crumbles in his mouth. He can feel the sugar rushing through him. He imagines this is what Captain America feels like. 

Vodka, it’s on his father’s breath as he stumbles into the kitchen. Tony bows his head and focuses intently on the task at hand. Chew, swallow, drink some milk and never look up. He can hear the sound of glass breaking. Chew, swallow, drink some milk and never look up. 

He goes to Aunt Peggy’s that night. It snows. His first white Christmas and he’s not even at home. 

He wakes up and it’s New York. Steve’s golden hair peeks up from the rubble. Soot infests his pristine skin and Tony likes the way it makes him look. Human. He’s not that thing that Howard made him out to be. He’s not just a serum in a bottle. He’s Captain America and Steve Rogers and he looks lost. Tony wishes he could’ve seen the shell shock at the time. He was too busy being an ass and not playing for a team. Story of his life. 

He’s on the ground again and ghostly pale. The swirling portal of Loki’s mayhem etching above the sky, closing slowly. He doesn’t appear to be breathing and Tony knows now why his teammates all hate to see him go down. 

It’s reminder of this. Of how close he was to death. He thinks he hears a flatline, he listens until it starts up in rhythmic beeping again. It sounds better that way. 

Bed. Malibu, surfers out the window and JARVIS on the radio. The California heat blares through the window, the humidity plastering Tony to his sheets. His phone rings and Tony picks it up. It feels familiar and he gets a flashback to a backlit alley, his phone too bright in the middle of the night. He can smell bourbon. 

“Hello?” Tony answers, deja vu forgotten. 

“Tony, please, just wake up,” His voice is watery but it sounds like Steve and Tony winces. He doesn’t know how to. He just wants to be left alone. 

“I can’t,” Tony feels so powerless. 

“Try.” The line goes dead and Tony’s hazy world fades out. 

White. Bright and unforgiving. Too clean. He smells the artificial oxygen before he’s aware of anything. Of the hand in his and the man perched at the end of his bed. He feels trippy, probably buzzed out on painkillers. 

His eyes don’t want to focus and Tony spends a good minute getting them to roll up enough to face Steve. He’s blurry. 

“Hey,” He greets and Tony quirks up a smile. 

“I had a really weird dream,” Tony replies, falling back asleep. Lulled by the siren of the drugs.

* * *

 

“Have you called the cops yet?” Natasha asks as she eyes the medical machinery. Tony is sleeping again. Having awakened from the surgery for a few moments only to have the sedative drag him under. 

“Not yet, I’m still not sure what happened,” She hums and Steve knows that he’s not gonna like how she gets the information...much. 

“I’ll be back,” Steve sighs, a spy’s gotta do what a spy’s gotta do. Even if it’s track down an unknown mugger in a city of pickpockets and street criminals. 

“Be safe,” Steve warns but knows it doesn’t make any difference. 

He goes back to watching Tony breathe. He’ll find out what happened. Hopefully before Tony’s fully healed and able to seek vengeance himself. 


	4. Chapter 4

He wakes again and it feels like he’s been run through a meat grinder. Tears are dripping down his cheeks and he hears a gasping, it takes a moment before he realizes it’s him.

Morphine is a glorious thing, he thinks as someone leans over him, light pine scent wafting over his head, and presses the button he assumes is on the side of his hospital bed.

“Better?” The disembodied voice asks and Tony hums, blinking his eyes open.

Harsh. The light hurts his eyes but they create an aura behind Steve’s head and Tony tries not to swoon. He shifts his shoulders, trying out his body like a new pair of shoes and finds that his abdomen burns. He’s sore, almost like someone twisted him into a pretzel and left him there overnight. But it feels good to breathe again, even if that air is artificial.

“Am I in heaven?” Tony jokes, pitching his voice into a caricature of a little boy. It bumps and bruises Steve’s chest as it rumbled into his ears.

“Ha. Ha,” Steve says, the words jilted and forced. He’s still trying to catch his breath on the fact that Tony is coherent. He didn’t miss his chance--he wouldn’t.

Steve takes a moment to glance at the rest of his team, they look tired, shell-shocked, a little bit drowned and he’s glad he’s not the only one over his head.

He’s glad the calvary arrived, even if it took all his willpower to call them.

A whirring fills the air and of course Tony is propping himself up, a day after having surgery to remove a ruptured spleen. To stop the bleeding that was killing him. To reinflate the lung that Steve half-hazardley fixed. Of course, it was Tony fucking stubborn Stark.

Steve gathers the courage to clear his throat, turning to his teammates, “Do you guys mind if you leave Tony and I alone for a moment,” Tony begins to protest but Steve shoots him a look, pleading or broken or pathetic, Steve doesn’t know. He just knows he’s fixed his face to the tune of his heart and suddenly Tony is nodding along, stating his own thanks as they file out.

“S-so, if this about something that I said, I’m sorry. I’m an asshole and I was drunk and bleeding but that tends to mean my mouth is running wild a--” Steve kisses him to end that rant.

“God, you are such an asshole,” Steve whispers when they break apart, Tony is confused but flushed, he runs a finger against his lips.

“Then why?”

“I love you.” Steve says and god it’s blunt and its there and it feels so...right.

Tony chokes a little, “I love you and I thought I lost you and you are such an asshole! I thought you were going to die Tony, how dare you.”

That’s when the clarity reaches Tony’s eyes and his confusion turns more into a smirk. “Oh, so I’m not really an asshole,” Tony smirks, “I’m just your obsession.”

Steve scoffs, “I’m not obsessed.”

“Says the man who came to my rescue at a godforsaken hour.”

“You were dying!” Steve cries, falling quiet after that. He feels tears well up, Tony places his hand on Steve’s.

“I know, I’m sorry. Told you I’m an asshole at the worst time.” Steve nods, “But if it’s any consolation, I love you too.”

Steve tightens his grip on Tony, “You know what this means though,” Steve says and Tony nods.

“I do.”

“We need to tell the team…”

“I know.”

“This might complicate things.”

“I know and Steve?” His eyes are so brown and warm and round when he glances over. Tony leans in, his white gown crinkling against the blanket, he doesn’t make it very far with his injuries, really only a few inches but his head is tilted and Steve can tell what he wants to do. He crosses the last few inches and meets Tony’s lips.

“This is what will make all of that worth it.” Tony whispers, running a hand through Steve’s blond hair, ending up entwined in the baby hairs on his neck. “Besides I get to brag that I tapped _that_.”

Steve hits Tony on the shoulder and they laugh. _A weird ending to a weird night,_ Steve muses but he can’t even stop the grin on his face or the warmth in his heart.

“Oh by the way, where’s Nat?” Tony asks and Steve freezes.

Steve remains eerily quiet and Tony sighs, "Did you at least send her with backup," Steve rubs the back of his neck, "For God's sake!"

"I had more important things on my mind," Steve reasons, "Besides maybe what the mugger needs is a little scare..."

Tony rolls his eyes but concedes, "Just as long as I don't get a lawsuit over this Rogers."

"Promise." 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, Sorry it took so long for me to finish this. I hope you like the ending after all these months. I had a really long bout of writer's block and insecurity for my work and it has taken me a while to get past it but I'm slowly working through it and I've got some writing to show for it. Thank you for reading this story and for those who have waited this long for the update, thank you for your support and I'm so sorry it took this long.


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